Chaos in the Mugshots; WTF Is Happening at Randall County Jail?

A picture is worth a thousand words, but a mugshot that looks like it was taken by a potato attracts the attention (and ridicule) of everybody on social media.

Mugshots of Randall County is one of Amarillo's most-loved and most-hated social media pages out there. And while the page may rowdy in nature, the anonymous administrators who run it are masters of controlled chaos.

But what happens when the actual mugshots start to go off the rails? What does it even mean?

Why Quality Matters

One of the running jokes about this page has been that the photos are dingy, dark, and not as great as the ones shown on Potter County Mugshots or even Lubbock County Mugshots. In fact, individuals of color often have the misfortune of blending in completely with the dark background.

A few months ago, I got brave and messaged the page to ask about the dark and dreary mugshots.

"We do have a gofundme for a ring light if you'd like to donate," was their reply.

I looked for it, but never found it. I also couldn't tell if it was sarcasm or if there actually was one.

So when the mugshots on Randall's page suddenly looked a whole lot better, I assumed the gofundme had worked. It made sense at the moment that the Randall County jail would have a ring light in booking.

People noticed right away and the crowd went wild. For the purposes of this story, I'm not showing the full posts so you'll have to go look on the page for yourself if you want to snoop, but these new photos start on May 1, 2024.

But just as the bright, flattering mugshots were posted, you couldn't help but notice that each one seemed a tad off from the one before. And before we knew it, the mugshots had become a pixelated and angry sunburned lump (as you can see in the top left portion of the above photo).

Nobody was more perplexed about the deteriorating quality than the admins of the page.

If there is one thing that this mugshot debacle has done, it is to dispel the rumor that jail employees are the ones running the mugshot page.

Because the admins of Mugshots of Randall County have been hilariously transparent about the entire fiasco.

You can find the admin in the comments dropping photos of potatoes when commenters make a disparaging remark on the photo quality

And they've even gone so far to share a few ideas for fixing the problematic photos.

But in all honesty, putting the mugshot page aside: what the hell??

Aren't mugshots supposed to be used in identifying people in lineups or for law enforcement? All I know is that the ones I saw could only be used to identify a cheeto.

The problem with the mugshot photo quality seems to have corrected itself and they're back to the usual dingy and dark photos. But from where I sit, it may have been a good reminder that Mugshots of Randall County doesn't run the show.....the jail staff do.